


Stone throwers living inside a glass cage

by Cartonsofcartoons



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Gen Fic, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 01:45:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17972126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cartonsofcartoons/pseuds/Cartonsofcartoons
Summary: The Dursleys were a perfectly normal family. Vernon Dursley worked hard at Grunnings, Petunia Dursley was a right class act and Dudley was a good boy if a bit loud. The black sheep in the family, the Potter boy, was the only blight on their otherwise spotless record.Or was he?





	Stone throwers living inside a glass cage

**Author's Note:**

> I watched this documentary, Dr Death, about Harold Shipman (you can find it on youtube) and it seemed like a big part of why Shipman went so long uncaught was because he was ‘respectable’ and smart, no one wanted to point the finger at him because it would be ludicrous and no one would believe them and a lot of the people who were suspicious about him lost their suspicions because of his cool and collected demeanour. The whole community was shocked by the fact that he was a serial killer and it made me wonder about what sort of sociological impact it might have had on Harry’s life if the HP series was set around the time when he was caught.

 

The Dursleys were a perfectly normal family. Vernon Dursley worked hard at Grunnings, Petunia Dursley was a right class act and Dudley was a good boy if a bit loud. The black sheep in the family, the Potter boy, was the only blight on their otherwise spotless record. He was a troublemaker through and through, Petunia had mentioned how his father was the same type, such a pity her poor sister had gotten involved with the man. He and Dudley were always fighting, the boy taking things from his cousin, running about the neighbourhood, why, the teachers seemed to think he was even cheating off Dudley.

 

Terrible child, what a pity the Dursleys were saddled with him. They were such a respectable family otherwise.

 

Alexandra, otherwise known in the neighbourhood as Mrs Smith mused these thoughts out loud to her husband and got an absent minded snort in reply. He’d been rather morose these days, one of his cousins had lived in Hyde and he’d been rather upset to hear the police ask to exhume his mother’s body, even more distraught when he realised that the lovely GP they’d all adored, was  _ murdering  _ people in their community and his mother had unfortunately been one of them.

 

“Really, Richard, I know that Shipman thing is on your mind but you must try to get over it, it’s not healthy to fixate on things.”

 

It was a rather ghastly ordeal and Mrs Smith was glad nothing of the sort would happen in their haven in Surrey. Honestly, Hyde sounded rather terrifying for all that it had looked picturesque when they’d visited three years ago.

 

“Adrian told me,” And Mrs Smith stifled a sigh, his cousin Adrian had sounded rather paranoid the last she’d spoken to him. She’d thought it was just a passing thing but apparently not and now he was getting her husband in on the act, “He said look at your neighbours, look at the milkman who passes by your doorstep every day, at the doctor you go to see whenever you have a cold and ask yourself how well you know them.”

 

“Richard, honestly, it’s the Dursleys for crying out loud, you know Vernon.”

 

“Do I?” The look in her husband’s eyes scared her, “Do I really? I can describe him well enough for someone to be able to recognise him. Large, loud, has a bit of a temper, has a sister who’s not unlike him, has a son who’s not unlike him. Has a wife who is skinny, long, a bit shrill, is a bit of a gossip. Has a nephew who’s quiet and unassuming for all that Petunia has a lot to say about him. Do I know Vernon? Do  _ you  _ know Petunia?”

 

She laughed it off, saying a few silly things to get her husband to roll his eyes at her and go back to reading the newspaper but his words stay with her.

 

She thinks about it, pondering the words intently and it begins to affect the way she looks at people. She looks at the people around her and starts analysing them, something she didn’t even know she could do.

 

Alexandra knew Anabelle, Piers’ mother well. They’d gone to school together, Anabelle hadn’t changed a bit. She struggled to discipline her son but was kind enough otherwise. She knew Anabelle.

 

She didn’t know Priscilla who lived down the road that well. But she asked around, talked to her a bit more and learnt Priscilla was sweet and naive, if a bit dim. She was rather lovely though, and Alexandra had found a new friend in her, making her feel a bit better about the sudden investigation she’d been indulging in, ever since her husband had put those awful thoughts in her mind.

 

One by one she ticked off all the people in the neighbourhood, poking and prodding and asking around until she felt like she actually did ‘know’ them. The more she learnt about them, the more she realised she didn’t really  _ like  _ them all that much. She absolutely loathed Malcolm’s mother, Mr Donal down the street was an absolute pervert who made her uncomfortable and so on and so forth. She knew them and had an opinion about them as well and it made her life difficult. It made her long for the old days when she could have pretended she knew them without caring a whit. Those days were long gone now.

 

And then she got to Petunia. The one she’d been saving for last because...well, she didn’t know why. Maybe she didn’t want Richard to be proven right. 

 

She asked Petunia about her sister, about her childhood. She tried to be subtle, she tried to be obvious. She learnt very few things about Petunia. Mostly she learned that Lily had been ‘favoured’ by their parents, that she was pretty enough if you liked that sort of Highland lass look and she hated the child because she hated the mother.

 

It was enough to make Alexandra suspicious where otherwise she might not have been so.

 

So she watched and began asking around the others. From Alice, Dennis’ mother, she learnt that Dudley and his friends, Dennis included had been caught bullying some students. While the others had played it off as boys being boys, Alice was considering telling Dennis to stay away from the Dursley boy. From Mrs Figg she learnt that Harry was a sweet boy who helped her whenever he could be spared from his chores at the Dursleys. From her husband, she learnt that Vernon had been told off by one of the higher ups for verbally assaulting the intern, who had since quit the firm. From the teachers at the school she learnt that while his aunt had warned them off about the Potter boy copying his homework off Dudley, the boy’s artistic skills were rather lovely and he was quite well behaved in class.

 

Someone in the lot was lying. And she was fairly sure it was Petunia.

 

The only question remained, what was Alexandra to do about it?

 

 


End file.
